“This is a very serious conversation for such a beautiful evening,” he said after a while. She hummed her agreement but didn’t throw him the lifeline he was almost hoping for. So he took a deep breath.
“You read in the paper how corrupt the police department is,” he began. “And for the most part, the rumors are true.”
He told her about the storekeepers who pressed things into a cop’s hands to gain his attention and good graces. He took his share of free meals, cab rides, cigars, bottles of whiskey. Once in a while he studiously overlooked the sale of lottery tickets and went home with a few folded bills in his pocket. There were times he was rougher than he needed to be with criminals, and was responsible for a cracked rib or a bloody nose now and then. On occasion he had let somebody stew in the Tombs for an extra couple of days until he could make a case that would stick in front of a judge.
He had some rules that he didn’t break: he never arrested a hungry child for stealing; he’d settle things with the grocer or baker or tavernkeeper and then send the kid on his way with a warning. He wasn’t rough with women or cripples or the feebleminded, though he had had cause on more than one occasion.
Jack looked down at her and waited until she raised her head to meet his gaze.
“Unless there’s a felony or children are involved, I don’t arrest prostitutes,” he said. “Male or female. And I never take bribes from them or the people they work for.
“There are other things, most of them pretty small. Right now what you really need to know is, I paid more than one bribe to get on the police force, and then again to get promoted.”
“Ah,” she said. “Because you’re Italian?”
He shook his head. “Everybody pays. It helped that they needed another detective who speaks Italian, but sure. I still paid more than I would have if I had an Irish last name. The plain fact is, nothing happens without money changing hands. There are more than a few cops out there who would make good detectives, but they’ll walk a beat until they drop dead, because they don’t have money or the right connections. And there are crooks and worse in the city who have never spent a day in jail and never will. Every saloonkeeper pays, every week. The same is true for dance halls and gambling joints and opium dens and disorderly houses. The ones you read about in the paper, the ones who do end up in jail are almost always there because they couldn’t or wouldn’t pay the bribe.”
She was watching him calmly, waiting. “Are you a part of that?”
Jack shook his head. “I’m not a beat cop.”
“But you like it, your job. What you do.”
“Most of the time, yes.”
“That’s something to be thankful for.”
She surprised him, again.
? ? ?
JACK FLAGGED DOWN a cab and helped her in, gave directions to the cabby and took the moment to gather his thoughts. His heart was racing, and he had broken out in a sweat despite the cool night air. But he could wait. He would have to wait until she was ready to talk.
As they set off down Prince Street he said, “Are we still going to the Foundling tomorrow?”
She gave him a curious half smile. “Why wouldn’t we?”
The cab went around the park before stopping at the corner where Fifth Avenue South met Washington Square. Jack helped her out without a word of explanation. He wanted to walk with her here, because he had more to say. The very idea made her throat go dry.
He stood there, his hand extended, and she took it.
? ? ?
“YOU DON’T WALK here at night alone.”
He wasn’t asking her a question, but voicing a command, of sorts. She might take exception to commands, but she understood his concerns.
“The streetlights make a great difference, and there’s nothing to fear from prostitutes.”
“It’s not the women you need to be wary of,” Jack said.
She let out a sigh. “I’m very aware of that. I don’t go through the park in the dark of night alone, but I do know every square inch of it. It was our playground when we were little, and later we—” She couldn’t help grinning at the memory.
He raised a brow. “Go on.”
“You saw that Margaret reads the Police Gazette, almost obsessively, I would say. She would talk about some of the crimes at the dinner table. Nothing violent, not when we were children. But she’d say, ‘Colonel Maxwell was burgled yesterday, every piece of silver in the house.’ And then she’d voice her opinion. Usually she’d say, ‘I suspect the help.’ Or she’d be specific. ‘They hired that Irish cook.’ Aunt Quinlan would take exception, and there would be a pointed discussion. Aunt never shielded us from this kind of thing, and eventually we were curious about the bits of the Police Gazette Margaret wasn’t reading to us.”
“Cap?”